Residency in the Front Gallery

Katya Granova

A Song of Unrequited Love for Britain

4th - 24th November

RuptureXIBIT alum, Katya Granova, has begun her residency in the Front Gallery, entitled ‘A Song of Unrequited Love for Britain’.

For Granova, Kingston was the first place she lived in Britain and the starting point of her 7 years of complex relationships with the UK and its culture. For her residency project, Granova is using black-and-white archival photographs from the UK, spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, transforming their compositions into large, visceral paintings to explore her feelings and painterly responses to their content.

Through the language of colour, gesture, and touch, she engages with the shared history of a culture that is still, in many ways, alien to her, in order to reconsider or redefine her connection to it. Through these photographs, she embraces the experiences, times, and the interactions of Britons in the 20th century, which have shaped the family histories of many contemporary Britons. Through this body of work, Granova is finally able to question herself — was it love? Was it requited?